Tom Lantos Commission Briefing, April 19, 2016
2255 Rayburn House Office Building

Statement by Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute

Source: Oakland Institute

Congressman Ellison, members of the Tom Lantos Commission, thank you for this opportunity to provide an update on land-related human rights issues to you.

Ethiopia—one of the poorest countries—is the world’s fifth largest recipient of development aid, and the largest in Africa. United States is the largest bilateral donor to Ethiopia. In 2014 Ethiopia received $665 million in US aid.

Ethiopia has been hailed as a nation in “renaissance,” praised for its economic growth and partnership on key US strategic interests. But missing from this narrative is that its so called “development” is based on widespread human rights violations, forced evictions and the displacement of millions of people from their traditional lands, the criminalization of dissent, and the misuse of the 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation. The land grab in Oromo, which triggered recent protests, is a country-wide phenomenon.

The enormous financial support Ethiopia gets from its international donors has been essential in funding the government’s development strategy, as outlined in its 2010 Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP). A cornerstone of USAID activity in Ethiopia was support for the GTP, a key element of which was the relocation of 1.5 million people from areas targeted for industrial plantations under the government’s “villagization” scheme. These displacements have continued without the free, prior, and informed consent of the impacted populations, and when communities resist, they are forcibly removed by means of violence, rape, imprisonment, intimidation, political coercion, and the denial of humanitarian assistance, including food aid.

These forced resettlements have operated in tandem with Ethiopia’s land-investment policies. In early 2008, the Ethiopian government embarked on the process to award millions of hectares (ha) of land to foreign and national agricultural investors at rock-bottom prices. Page 30 of the 2015 Investment Guide to Ethiopia, a document from the Ethiopia Investment Commission, states that there are nearly 11.55 million ha of potential land available for farming.

While the human rights consequences of the EPRDF’s political hegemony are indisputable and acknowledged by USAID and the State Department, recognition of the human rights violations resulting from the government’s forced removals has largely been missing. On-the-ground research since 2008 by the Oakland Institute, has exposed the systemic and coerced resettlement of indigenous communities and has documented specific accounts of beatings, unlawful arrests, and rape at the hands of the Ethiopian Defense Force, all used to enforce the government’s villagization program.

In a 2013 report, the Oakland Institute documented how officials from USAID heard first-hand accounts of forced resettlements and human rights abuses from villagers and still came to the conclusion that the allegations of forced removals were “unsubstantiated.” In spite of hearing from people directly impacted by them, USAID officials said that no evidence exists to make the links between their programs and the practices of the Ethiopian government.

The USAID officials ignored their initiative, “Ethiopia: Land Tenure and Administration Program” (ELAP), targeting high-potential investment areas and facilitating land transactions with the stated purpose of facilitating investment. Today Land Administration to Nurture Development (LAND) has replaced ELAP, and is assisting the federal and regional state governments in implementing policies and plans that will facilitate and encourage investment for so called appropriate use of land for improved productivity.

US development assistance also operates through Feed the Future (FTF), which aims to make pastoralist land more productive. While FTF mentions concerns about Ethiopia’s “policy of settlement regarding pastoral peoples,” it places primary importance on increasing private sector capacity in pastoral communities as a means to development.

In September 2015, in violation of Appropriations Bills of 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016, the US Treasury voted in favor of World Bank’s new Enhancing Shared Prosperity through Equitable Services (ESPES) program in Ethiopia. ESPES replaces the Bank’s Promoting Basic Services (PBS) program, which for years has been associated with human rights abuses and the forced relocation of indigenous communities and large-scale land grabs. These issues were highlighted in a report by the World Bank’s own independent Inspection Panel in 2015. Rather than addressing the grave concerns raised about the program, the Bank, instead, launched an almost identical initiative under a new name.

Congressional laws exist to ensure that US tax payers’ dollars don’t contribute to social harm. The Commission should ask the Treasury to explain how it could ignore the Congressional mandate and disregard the protection of indigenous groups and forced displacement by voting in favor of the ESPES program.

And in the course of our work, we have seen Ethiopia’s Anti-Terrorism Proclamation used as the tool to carry out the government’s development strategy. A recent report authored by lawyers from leading international law firms, provides an in-depth analysis of the Proclamation and shows how it is a tool of repression, designed and used by the Ethiopian Government to silence its critics.

While legitimate anti-terrorism laws exist, Ethiopia’s Anti-Terrorism Proclamation criminalizes basic human rights, especially freedoms of speech and assembly. The law defines terrorism in an extremely broad and vague way so as to give the government enormous leeway to punish words and actions that would be perfectly legal in a democracy. It also gives the police and security services unprecedented new powers, and shifts the burden of proof to the accused. Worse still, many of those charged report having been tortured, and the so-called confessions that have been obtained as a result have been used against them at trial. Those who have been charged as terrorists under the law include newspaper editors, indigenous leaders, land rights activists, bloggers, political opposition members, and students. The Anti Terrorism laws are being used by the Ethiopian government not against the terrorists, but to curb human rights of its own citizens.

Ethiopia is one of the largest recipients of US development aid. It is imperative to ensure that efforts to reduce hunger, poverty and conflict in the East Africa are not being undermined by undemocratic and increasingly repressive development practices in Ethiopia. Congress put forward important protection in the 2014, 2015 and 2016 Appropriations Bills around our aid being used for forced displacements. It is time to follow-through with those promises, to ensure proper monitoring of the situation on the ground, and where necessary, the redirection of funds.

We recognize the need for development aid, especially during major humanitarian crises like the current drought in Ethiopia. Yet it is counterproductive if donor aid is supporting the destruction of natural resources upon which the poor directly depend, and if it enables projects that lead to human rights abuses. Current US support to the Ethiopian government—financial, political and moral—is in danger of producing exactly the opposite result from what we intend. It is enabling an authoritarian government to ignore the rights and interests of its own citizens, which can only end in violence and instability. The US Congress should undertake a serious examination of our development aid to Ethiopia, to ensure that it is not supporting political repression, and is not being funneled into land grabs that are undermining the poverty-alleviation intent of US taxpayer aid.

The European Union earlier this year passed a strong worded resolution on the human rights situation in Ethiopia. It is time for the United States to speak up for democracy and for human rights in Ethiopia.

Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director

Anuradha Mittal, founder and executive director of the Oakland Institute, is an internationally renowned expert on trade, development, human rights and agriculture issues. Recipient of several awards, Anuradha Mittal was named as the Most Valuable Thinker in 2008 by the Nation magazine.

Mittal has authored and edited numerous books and reports including (Mis)Investment in Agriculture: The Role of the International Finance Corporation in the Global Land Grab; The Great Land Grab: Rush for World’s Farmland Threatens Food Security for the Poor; Voices from Africa: African Farmers and Environmentalists Speak out Against a New Green Revolution; 2008 Food Price Crisis: Rethinking Food Security Policies; Going Gray in the Golden State: The Reality of Poverty Among Seniors in Oakland, California; Turning the Tide: Challenging the Right on Campus; Sahel: A Prisoner of Starvation; America Needs Human Rights; and The Future in the Balance: Essays on Globalization and Resistance. Her articles and opinion pieces have been published in widely circulated newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Bangkok Post, Houston Chronicle, and the Nation. Anuradha has addressed the Congress, the United Nations, given several hundred keynote addresses including invitational events from governments and universities, and has been interviewed on CNN, BBC World, CBC, ABC, Al-Jazeera, National Public Radio and Voice of America.

Anuradha is on the board and advisory committees of several non profit organizations including the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize), International Forum on Globalization, and is a member of the independent board of Ben & Jerry’s which focuses on providing leadership for Ben & Jerry’s social mission and brand integrity.

PRESS RELEASE

Currently, the Afar people in Ethiopia are facing disastrous, appalling and unprecedented dreadful famine catastrophe. The famine was not only caused by lack of rain, drought, climate change and effect of El Niño weather conditions as they claim but, it was a result of TPLF/EPRDF corruption, failure of strategies and policies, bad governance, human rights violations, unlawful land grabbing, forcible removal and eviction of Afar People from their traditional grazing land. They were driven away from the banks of Awash River which has been the lifeline of the Afar population that depend on it for survival since time immemorial to make place for the sugar plantations and large-scale agricultural projects owned by TPLF and foreign multinational corporations, companies and investors.

First, the Afar people saying that since 2012, they have been calling on the Federal and Regional Governments to find solution for the water shortages, environmental degradation, destruction of pastors and grazing resources, drying up of the Awash River problems that caused by damming of the Awash River by the regime, nevertheless their appeal and call fell on deaf ear.

Second it is a well-documented fact is that both the Ex-President and the current President of the Afar region, Ex- and current Federal Communication Affairs Office Minister have deliberately and blindly denied the existence of the famine in Ethiopia during 2013-2015.

Third, it is irrefutable fact is that TPLF/ ANDP or “ADE as it is known locally” purposely failed to recognise, acknowledge and to declare the famine on time. They even refused to call publically on the international Community for emergency humanitarian assistance to help the affected peoples in the country.

Additional fact is that, instead of helping the affected peoples by the famine, Federal Government Communication Affairs Office Minister Redwan Hussein blamed and accused the Afar pastoralists for the death of their livestock in order to cover his Government’s forcible removal of Afar pastoralists from their traditional grazing land on the Awash River banks to make away for TPLF, Foreign Multinational Corporations’ and Investors owned large scale Projects. The famine created by TPLF/EPRDF has already caused too many catastrophic problems for the Afar, such as food insecurity, water crisis, widespread malnutrition, health problem and unprecedented death of their livestock. As a result, the Afar have severely suffered.
In addition to the unprecedented famine that was worsened by the policies of the regime the TPLF has developed the following plans to systematically exterminate the Afar in Ethiopia:-

• Unlawful land grabbing and enforced eviction from their land
• Removing them from the Awash River banks forcibly
• Transferring parts of Afar land to the Somali tribe called Issa to create endless conflict between them in coordination with Issa dominated regime of Djibouti for its interests.
• Instigating conflicts between the Afar and their neighbouring peoples
• Removing Afar from all mineralised areas of Afar land
• Appointing uneducated, unskilled, inexperienced and corrupted individuals as Afar region officials to serve the interest of TPLF.
• Creating tribalism, mistrust and division between the ruling mafia and the Afar society;
• Controlling Afar region economic, political, social and cultural affairs by appointed Tigray Security Advisors or Counsellor, locally known as Ammakari

Any person who disagrees or rejects ANDP (QADE) TPLF (WAYANE) order is called anti peace element and sympathizer with ARDUF then; he/she is arrested and imprisoned arbitrarily. Today, the Afar region does not have a legitimate political authority accountable to the Afar. It is ruled by TPLF former fighters who are member of the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF). Their main duty, obligation and responsibility is only to serve their master not the Afar people, as they appointed by TPLF not by the Afar people, they are only accountable and answerable to the TPLF.
As a result of TPLF racially motivated discriminatory politics and policies the Peoples of Ethiopia in all regions are all facing increasing political oppression, economic marginalisation, and social exclusion, gross violation of human rights, horrible famine and internal displacement. The regime continues to unlawfully kill, systematically repress and arbitrarily arrest people in the regions of Oromia, Ogaden, Sidama, Amhara and Gambella in general and in the districts of Konso, Qimant, Humera, Tsegede and Wolkait in particular who fight for their basic human rights.

ARDUF condemns in the strongest possible terms the horrifying famine crimes of killings, displacement and forcible removal from their ancestral land committed by TPLF regime on the Afar people in particular; and against other peoples in Ethiopia in general.

ARDUF calls on all Ethiopian opposition forces, civil societies, human rights defenders and journalists to reject and denounce the politics of divide and rule by an iron fist and oppression of TPLF/EPRDF and support a democratic armed struggle to eliminate the fascist regime and to establish a genuine Democratic Federalism based on the rule of law in Ethiopia.

Long live the Victory of ARDUF & Ethiopian Peoples

Military Command Centre (MCC)
Information Desk of ARDUF
Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF)

ODUU, Ijoo Dubbii ABO: dhumaatii tibbana baqattoota Oromoo mudaterratti fuulleffatee fi Gabaasa Sirna Yaadannoo Guyyaa Gootota Wareegamtoota Oromoo Akkasumas SBO Sagantaa Afaan Amaaraa.

#Oromoprotests in Washington DC hearings on Oromo protest and Ethiopian regime killing students
Evening After Briefing and Demonstration in Washington, DC April 19, 2016

Beeksisa!!!
Kabajamtoota Ilmaan Oromoo biyyaa Masrii jiraattan hundaafii. Statistic ykn odeeffama qabatamaa argachuufii, namootaa bishaan medtrenianiin keesatti du’an kan beeyttan yoo jiraate, 1- Maqaa isaanifii, 2- Lakkoysa galmee UNHCR 3- Suura wajiin akka nuuf gabaasitanii kabajaan isin gaafanna. Haala gaddaa waan irra jirruufii hammumaa dandahameen haala jiruu hundaa qorannoo godhuufii, odeeffanno jiruu adda addaa qaamaa barbaachisuu hundaatti akka dabarsinuu akka karaa inboksiin nuuf gabaasitan kabajaan isin gaafanna.
Irraa deebinee Rabbiin Sabriif jabinnaa nuuf hakennuu.

Ebla 20,2016 Guyyaa har’aa magaalaan Naqamtee boba’aa konkolaataa dhorkamuun sochiin konkolaatotaa ugguramaa jira.

Waajjira Mana-maree Ameerikaa Keessatti Dhuga-bahinsa Dhiittaa Mirga Uummata Oromoo Gegeessame
Afaan Oromoo

Afaan Amaaraa

By Nick Squires

Member of the Greek coastguard help migrants to disembark at the port of Kalamata CREDIT: NIKITAS KOTSIARIS/EPA

(Telegraph) — Up to 500 migrants and refugees died when their boat capsized in the middle of the Mediterranean, survivors have claimed, amid confusion over what would rank as one of Europe’s worst migrant tragedies.

Accounts of the disaster were provided by a group of 41 survivors, all from African countries, who were rescued at sea by a merchant vessel and taken to the Greek port of Kalamata, in the Peloponnese.

They told the United Nations refugee agency on Wednesday about “a large shipwreck that took place in the Mediterranean Sea claiming the lives of approximately 500 people,” a UNHCR spokeswoman said yesterday.

The BBC earlier reported survivors saying around 240 migrants left Tobruk, on the coast of Libya, in a boat heading for Italy last week.

Once at sea, they were then transferred to a larger vessel, which was already packed with around 300 people.

It then capsized, in circumstances which are unclear, but probably related to overcrowding.

The survivors, who are from Somalia, Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia, remained in the smaller boat.

A bus transports migrants to safety in Kalamata CREDIT: NIKITAS KOTSIARIS/EPA

On its deck they painted, in red letters “RESCUE 16 April”.

They were eventually rescued by a Filipino-flagged merchant ship, Eastern Confidence, which took them to Kalamata in southern Greece.

The migrants had originally demanded to be taken to Italy and were unhappy to be told that they would be landing in Greece instead.

“My wife and my baby drowned in front of me,” Muaz, an Ethiopian migrant, told the BBC. “I was one of the few who managed to swim back to the smaller boat.”

He insisted that around 500 people had drowned at sea. Abdul Kadir, a Somali, said that 240 people set off from the Libyan coast in the smaller vessel. “But then the traffickers made us get on to a bigger wooden boat around 30 metres in length that already had at least 300 people in it,” he said.

A young boy is carried ashore CREDIT: NIKITAS KOTSIARIS/EPAInformation from the Greek authorities seemed to tally with the migrants’s accounts.

Gabaasa, Abbaa Seenaa

Hawaasni OROMOO magaalaa kaampaalaa jiraatu, Ebila 15, Guyyaa Yaadannoo Wareegamtoota/Gootoota Oromoo walitti dhufuun kan gaggeeffate yennaa ta’uu, sirni guyyaa yaadannoo wareegamtoota Oromoo kun akka aadaa Oromootti eebba Maanguddootaa fi yaadannoo sammuu Gootoota/ wareegamtoota Oromoof taasisuun eegalee jira.

Itti aansuun keessummaan sirna kanaa, maqaa hawaasa Oromoo Magaalaa Kaampaalaatiin , guyyaa yaadannoo wareegamtoota Oromoof, dungoo qabsiisuu ega mirkaneessanii booda, Hawaasi oromoo sirna kana irratti argamees, dungoo qabsiifachuun kabajaa fi ulfiina Gootoota Oromoof qabu mirkaneessee jira.

Sirna Guyyaa Yaadannoo Wareegamtoota Oromoo Hawaasni Oromoo Magaalaa Kaampaalaa jiraatu gaggeeffame kana irratti, Guyyaa wareegamtoota Oromoo ilaalchisee ibsi bal’aan kan kennamee yennaa ta’uu, wareegamtoonni Oromoo Amantii fi kutaan adda osoo adda hin ba’iin, kabajaa Tokkummaa Oromoof qaban mul’isuuf Gootummaa seena qabeessa akkuma raawwatan, Dhaloonni har’aas, Oromiyaa guutuu keessatti tokkummaadhaan Imaanaa wareegamtotaa bakkaan ga’uuf aarsaa guddaa baasaa akka jiran , kanas xumura itti gochuuf dhalli oromoo hundi sochii eegalee daran jabeessuu akka qabu dhaamamee jira.

Sirna guyyaa yaadannoo guyyaa Gootoota Oromoo kana irratti qophiileen Dorgommii fi caalbaasii gaggeeffameera. Sirna caalbaasii kun, Alaabaa Oromoo fi Suuraa Gooticha Oromoo Taaddasaa Birruu fi Maandeellaa dhihaatee jira.

Hawaasni Oromoo Magaalaa Kaampaalaa jiraatu, guyyaa wareegamtootaa kana yennaa yaadatu , wareegamuun isaanii ilmaan Oromoo amma lubbuun jirruuf wabii akka ta’ee, waadaa fi Imaanaa isaanii Dantaa dhuunfaa fi oftuulummaa, akkasumas ofittummaan jaamanii akka hin dagannee, rakkoon kamiyyuu bakka fedhe jiraatu, kaayyoo wareegamtoota keenyaa bakkaan ga’uuf ni qabsoofnaa jedhanii jiran.

Dhaloota har’aa Mirga Abbaa Biyyummaa isaaf wareegama ol aanaa kafalaa jiruufis kabajaa fi Ulfina ol aanaa kan qabu ta’uu ibsuun, Qeerroo fi Ummati Oromoo Biyya keessaa fi alatti sochii taasisaa jiran bifa barbaachiseen kan waliin dhaabbatan ta’uu akeekanii jiran. Sirni kabajaa Guyyaa Wareegamtoota Oromoo Magaalaa Kaampaalaatti hawaasa Oromoon yaadatamee oolee, waadaa wareegamtootaa bakkaan akka ga’an faaruu fi dungoo qabsiisuun haaromsanii, dirnichis akkuma eebba maanguddoon eegalee , eebba Maangudduun xumuramee jira.

William Davison, April 20

(The Guardian) — The South Sudanese attackers arrived on foot before dawn. In the Nuer villages in the grasslands of Gambella in western Ethiopia, people woke to the sound of gunshots and tried to flee, but armed men stopped them. Mothers were shot when they tried to stop the raiders taking their children.

Bol Choul, 26, tried to run away but one of the attackers caught him in his hut and they fought. Bol injured his hand but managed to get out. He had to leave without his wife and children, and his blind father, who was shot but survived.

“I heard my wife’s alive, but one child is taken and one is with her,” Bol said at the main hospital in Gambella region two days after the attacks in the Lare and Jikawo districts.

More than 200 people were killed in the attacks on more than 20 villages, according to Ethiopia’s government. About 100 children were abducted, and livestock was snatched as well.

Unicef said the attack on children constituted a violation of human rights, and condemned “this horrific act of unbridled violence”.

Described by locals as the worst violence they had seen in two decades, the cross-border attacks pose a new challenge to the Ethiopian government, already grappling with growing tensions between central authorities and ethnic populations.

Ethiopia’s ability to respond is hampered by difficult terrain and the weakness of the state in South Sudan, where a peace deal intended to end years of war hangs in the balance as rebel leader and former deputy president Riek Machar delays his much-heralded return to the capital Juba, originally scheduled for Monday.

The assailants who crossed the border last week were probably Murle, a mainly cattle-herding ethnic group of perhaps 200,000 people that primarily live 150-200km from Gambella in the Pibor area of South Sudan’s troubled Jonglei region.

Gambella, a sparsely populated region of dense scrub and swamps bordering South Sudan, has long been marked by sporadic violence.

But the scale, organisation and brutality of last week’s attack had more in keeping with atrocities committed in South Sudan, where war has turned chronic underdevelopment into a humanitarian crisis. The UN estimates that 5.1 million people need assistance this year out of a population of 12 million.

Of the approximately 80 injured people who arrived at Gambella town’s hospital, more than 50 were women, said staff. A few Nuer community militia members with guns retaliated, killing some attackers, who wore unmarked military uniforms and carried modern Kalashnikov rifles, according to survivors.

South Sudan’s militarisation, maladministration and rampant disorder, combined with recent clashes in Gambella between the Nuer and the Anuak communities, may have contributed to the brutality of the attack.

The massacre marks a new challenge for Ethiopian authorities in Gambella after unsuccessful development policies and an influx of Nuer refugees from South Sudan compounded the area’s problems.

Previously a majority in the region, the sedentary Anuak feel threatened by the arrival of pastoralist Nuer on what they consider to be their land. Many Anuak were angered by a government resettlement plan that began in 2010 and clustered them into expanded villages near roads.

While Ethiopian officials said this was done to make public services more efficient, opponents claimed thousands were forced off their land to make way for agricultural investments.

Anuak discontent was exacerbated by the arrival of more than 250,000 Nuer tonew refugee camps, starting after South Sudan’s government imploded in December 2013 when the ruling party fractured and up to 70% of the military rebelled.

Tensions between the Anuak and Nuer exploded in February, with dozens killed and clashes even involving members of the Regional Special Police fighting among themselves, along the same ethnic lines.

Subsequently, all those forces were withdrawn to Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, for training – even from parts of the state, such as the locations of last week’s Murle raid, where they had not clashed, according to an aid worker, victims and a local security official.

Their removal followed disarmament of the Nuer over previous years, said Gatwich Tok, 26, who was in one of the villages attacked last week. “The government of Ethiopia does not allow communities to have guns,” he said.

Ethiopia said it is prepared to pursue the raiders into South Sudan and rescue the kidnapped children. But a local security official said bilateral negotiations were the way forward.

“We cannot cross the border … these people are criminals and we do not do the same criminal acts as them,” he said, requesting anonymity.

Improving border security through dialogue or a joint military operation with South Sudan may prove tricky. Before the latest bout of civil war, Jonglei state was already one of the most violent in the country, partly because of clashes linked to cattle raiding.

Further complicating the political situation is a contested October decree by President Salva Kiir to increase the number of states in South Sudan from 10 to 28. That decision has already reportedly led to fresh conflict in Murle areas.

Mr. CARDIN (for himself, Ms. CANTWELL, Mrs. MURRAY, Mr. MARKEY, Mr. COONS, Mr. MENENDEZ, Mr. LEAHY, Mr. FRANKEN, Mr. DURBIN, Ms. KLOBUCHAR, and Mr. RUBIO) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on _________________

____________________________

RESOLUTION

Supporting respect for human rights and encouraging inclusive governance in Ethiopia.

Whereas the first pillar of the 2012 United States Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa is to strengthen democratic institutions, and the United States Agency for International Development Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance Strategy states that strong democratic institutions, respect for human rights, and participatory, accountable governance are crucial elements for improving people’s lives in a sustainable way;

Whereas the third pillar of the 2012 United States Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa is to advance peace and security, including supporting security sector reform;

Whereas democratic space in Ethiopia has steadily diminished since the general elections of 2005;

Whereas elections were held in 2015 in which the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front claimed 100 percent of parliamentary seats;

Whereas the 2014 Department of State Human Rights Report on Ethiopia cited serious human rights violations, including arbitrary arrests, killings, and torture committed by security forces as well as restrictions on freedom of expression and freedom of association, politically motivated trials, harassment, and intimidation of opposition members and journalists;

Whereas the Government of Ethiopia has repeatedly abused laws such as the 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation to limit press freedom, silence independent journalists, and persecute members of the political opposition;

Whereas laws such as the 2009 Charities and Societies Proclamation have been used to restrict the operation of civil society and nongovernmental organizations in Ethiopia across a range of purposes, particularly those investigating alleged violations of human rights by governmental authorities;

Whereas the case of the ‘‘Zone 9 Bloggers’’, whose arrest, detention, and trials on terrorism charges brought international attention to the restrictions on press freedom in Ethiopia, is indicative of the coercive environment in which journalists operate;

Whereas the Ethiopian Human Rights Council reports at least 102 protester deaths, and according to Human Rights Watch, Ethiopian security forces have killed at. least 200 peaceful protesters in the Oromia region, and that number is likely higher;

Whereas state sponsored violence against those exercising their rights to peaceful assembly in Oromia and elsewhere in the country, and the abuse of laws to stifle journalistic freedoms, stand in direct contrast to democratic principles and in violation of Ethiopia’s constitution; and

Whereas, during President Barack Obama’s historic visit to Addis Ababa in July 2015, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn expressed his government’s commitment to deepen the democratic process and work towards the respect of human rights and improving governance, and noted the need to step up efforts to strengthen institutions:

Now, therefore be it

Resolved, That the Senate—

(1) condemns—

(A) killings of peaceful protesters and excessive use of force by Ethiopian security forces;

(B) arrest and detention of journalists,students, activists and political leaders who exercise their constitutional rights to freedom of assembly and expression through peaceful protests; and

(C) abuse of the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation to stifle political and civil dissent and journalistic freedoms.

(2) urges protesters in Ethiopia to refrain from violence;

(3) calls on the Government of Ethiopia—

(A) to halt the use of excessive force by security forces;

(B) to conduct a full, credible, and transparent investigation into the killings and instances of excessive use of force that took place as a result of protests in the Oromia region and hold security forces accountable for wrongdoing through public proceedings;

(C) to release dissidents, activists, and journalists who have been jailed, including those arrested for reporting about the protests, for exercising constitutional rights;

(D) to respect the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and guarantee freedom of the press and mass media in keeping with Articles 30 and 29 of the Ethiopian constitution;

(E) to engage in open and transparent consultations relative to its development strategy, especially those strategies that could result in people’s displacement from land; and

(F) to repeal proclamations that—.

(i) can be used as a political tool to harass or prohibit funding for civil society organizations that investigate human rights violations, engage in peaceful political dissent, or advocate for greater political freedoms; or

(ii) prohibit or otherwise limit those displaced from their land from seeking remedy or redress in courts, or that do not provide a transparent, accessible means to access justice for those displaced;

(4) calls on the Secretary of State to conduct a review of security assistance to Ethiopia in light of recent developments and to improve transparency with respect to the purposes of such assistance to the people of Ethiopia;

(5) calls on the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development to immediately lead efforts to develop a comprehensive strategy to support improved democracy and governance in Ethiopia;

(6) calls on the Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, to improve oversight and accountability of United States assistance to Ethiopia pursuant to expectations established in the President’s 2012 Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa; and

(7) stands by the people of Ethiopia, and supports their peaceful efforts to increase democratic space and to exercise the rights guaranteed by the Ethiopian constitution.

Ebla 21-20/2016 Godina Lixa Shaggaritti Magaalaan Amboo Gara Dirree Waraanatti Erga jijjiramtee olee bubbulee jira,Goototni barattootni Oromoo Manneen Barnoota Sadarkaa 2ffaa Amboo biyyi keenya Waraanaan goolamaa utuu jirtuu, waraanni wayyaanee gandoota baadiyyaa hanga manneen barnootaa sadarkaa 1ffaatti qubsiifamee uummata keenya, ajjeesaa, saamaa, hidhatti ukkamsaa fi dhukaasee sodachisaa jiru hanga Oromiyaa gadhiisee bahuun hanga seeratti dhiyaatuttii qoramtaas hin fudhannuu Warraaqsaa FXG marsaa 5ffaa itti jirruun bilisummaa keenyaa fi Walabummaa biyya keenyaa ni mirkaneeffanna jechuun qoraata hin fudhan nuu jechuun sagalee mormii dhageesisuun gara maatiitti deebi’an. Goototni barattootni Oromoo Yuunibarsiitii Amoo dame Awwaroo mormii isaanii akkuma itti fufanitti jiruu, waraanni Wayyaanees mooraa Yuunibarsiitii Amboo keessa buufatee barattoota goola jira. halkan edaas Waraannii Wayyaanee of irratti wareeruun dhukaasaa uummatarratti reebaa bulee. Godinicha keessatti tarkaanfiin rifachiisaa fi haleellaan gootota ilmaan Oromoo human ittisa Oromoon eegalames magaalaa Amboo fi Aanota Godinichaa hedduu keessatti daran jabaachuun itti fufee jira. Aanotaa Godinichaa cufa Keessatti Diddaan uummata Oromoo daran jabachuun itti fufee jira, Sochiin diddaa kanfaltii Gibra fi buusii mootummaa abba irree dhorkachuus haalaan hojii irra olfamuun uummatni Oromoo eenyummaa isaa diinatti argisise.
Injifannoon uummata Oromoof!!

 By Tsegaye R Ararssa

1. Introduction

Oromo Honor  Dr. Trevor Trueman in Melbourne, Australia

(Addis Standard) — A lot is happening in our part of the world. The last five months have been immensely eventful. We witnessed a series of tragic events unfolding successively one after the other, each more saddening than the one preceding it. These are truly hard times. Such times signal the urgency of prudent action. Reflexive action is the imperative of the time.

Over the weekend, when I was asked to comment on the ongoing Oromo protest in Ethiopia, I chose to reflect on the Oromo pursuit of social justice and political freedom, the pursuit of what Etienne Balibar calls ‘Equaliberty.’[1] In particular, I chose to reflect on the four critical phases of the Oromo struggle for national emancipation in order to express, if I can, solidarity with the national awakening we see in Oromia today. Specifically, I focused on the phases of survivance,[2]resistance, recovery, and reconstruction.

The primary aim for me personally is to pay attention and to remember and remember. It is to pay tribute to the people, young and old, who have given and are giving their all in this most recent iteration of the Oromo national struggle for emancipation. The broader aim is to encourage all of us to look ahead into the future, where the Oromo will build walls of connection serving as a force for good in the region. It is aimed at encouraging us into the redemptive work of transformation of the entire Horn of Africa Region through a just peace, a peace that honors the ideals of Equality and Liberty (social justice and freedom). It is directed towards invoking what Ruti Teitel calls ‘Humanity’s Law,’[3] the law that emerged in consideration of the global inter-connectedness in the 21^st century – and the law that enhances accountability for one’s actions in all corners of the world. I will argue that the success of this ongoing resistance, which some rightly call ‘Oromo National Awakening,’[4] depends on its capacity to engage with the world responsibly and re-constructively within the framework of Humanity’s Law.

2. Phases of the struggle for National Emancipation

Since the time of their incorporation into Ethiopia in the 19^th century, the Oromo have undergone four phases in their expression of indignation and resentment to the hegemony of the Ethiopian state nationalism. These phases can be summarized as follows:

a) Survivance;
b) Resistance;
c) Recovery;
d) Reconstruction.

I hasten to add that there is hardly a clear demarcation between these phases as they not only flow into one another but also overlap. At times, they occur simultaneously. When they do so, or whenever any two of these happen together, as in the current Oromo awakening, the more successful they become, the more explosive in their intensity, the more powerful in their impact. When they come coevally, they tend to birth a rupture, even a revolution.

Let us have a quick look at what each stage involves.

• Survivance: Insisting on Presence

At this stage of reckoning with loss and lamenting humiliation, the Oromo was engaged in a quiet performance of Oromumma in the privacy of their homes and/or in the non-penetrated spaces of the rural environment. Among other things, this stage is marked by a quiet resistance to cultural and physical extermination. It was a season of adaptation and adjustment, a season of quiet retreat into one’s own way of life. It is a season of practising Oromumma in the non-public space (in the privacy of the home and in the isolated corners of unpenetrated Oromo hinterland).  In urban areas, the Oromo tried to resist assimilation even as they performed a politics of passing and invisibility, making a gesture towards assimilation. In the rural areas, where the State was unable to penetrate the society, the resistance took the form of distancing oneself from the state. A typical practice in this regard is avoiding state schools for fear of being subjected to a repressive pedagogy of assimilation and erasure of their Oromo identity. The time from incorporation into the Ethiopian imperial state in the late 19^thcentury to the 1960s can be characterized as a time of survival and of practising survivance.[5]

• Resistance

This is the stage of refusal to be governed. This is the stage of saying NO, overtly and covertly. In its covert form, it sought to disperse the benefits of modern education and basic infrastructure among the Oromo without calling it an Oromo movement. This is what one sees in the early activities of the self-help association known as the Matcha-Tulama Association (MTA).  Of course, this kind of covert resistance is undergirded by a keen sense of awareness of oneself as an Oromo and of appreciating the uneven distribution of basic social services in the empire.

The most overt form of resistance started in the acts of rebellion and organized armed resistance in the 1960s. The age of resistance that started with the MTA movement in urban areas of the centre was corroborated by the Bale Oromo resistance also charting out the route (also in part contributing) to the subsequent Ethiopia-wide social upheaval and revolution of 1974. The more mature phase of resistance, of course, took shape only after the formation of the Oromo Liberation Front in 1974 to launch an armed struggle.

Fast forward, when the military regime was eventually toppled by forces of the periphery in 1991, this phase of overt resistance came to a close only to start after a season of recovery. The Oromo self-assertion as a self-determining agent to have a role in the reconstitution of the Ethiopian state as a democratic, human rights-sensitive, caring and compassionate polity committed to multi-foundationalism, plurinationalism, and just peace[6] was met by a military reprisal under an insecure Ethiopian regime that was reluctant to lose power for the sake of transforming the polity on democratic and humanitarian bases. The transition to democracy faltered and ultimately got derailed altogether. The politics remained militarized. The state crisis continued to deepen. When the OLF left the transition, the transitional pact signed among various liberation fronts collapsed. The hope of transformation was deferred.

The Oromo self-assertion came to be viewed as a threat to the national security of Ethiopia. Oromummabecame a securitized identity. The Ethiopian prisons and detention centres started to be congested byOromos charged with the non-existent crime of being ‘anti-peace elements’ (the incipient form of what later became the discourse of terrorism). The politics of co-optation and patronage had led to the creation of the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) to rule Oromia on behalf of the Ethiopian regime, which was now under the tight grip of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). In order to secure a semblance of legitimacy in Oromia, however, the regime adopted the OLF’s program of recovering the Oromo language (Afaan Oromo), Oromo identity, Oromo culture, Oromo history, and all there is in between.

The seeds of recovery were already in the phase of resistance. However, the actual work of recovery started to bear fruit as it was intensified even in the midst of a violent repression unprecedented in a long time. While the Ethiopian regime utilized its good relations with the international community to malign the Oromos as terrorists and to exclude them from the public space, the Oromo took solace in the possibility of using their language, practicing their culture, and manifesting their identity in public—albeit only to a limited extent. Later on, this act of taking comfort and pride in using language, expressing culture, and manifesting identity came to express itself in the cultural turn the Oromo resistance took in the face of the increasing closure of the public (political) space.[7]

• Recovery

This phase was a stage of ‘drawing breath.’[8] Although at first it appeared a moment of loss and defeat, it actually became a moment of recovery. It is a moment of finding our way back to our Oromo selves. It proved to be a moment of experiencing resilience in its full bloom. Almost like a national recess, it served as a season of rehabilitating the Oromo self, recovering and projecting Oromo subjectivity. It was a moment of reclamation of voice for the Oromo.

In particular, it was a season of recovering the language, the identity, the history (the narrative, the memories, and the stories), the culture, and the cultural institutions of the Oromo. It was a season of refurbishing our way of being in the world, a moment ofre-presenting ourselves, counteracting the forced absence of the Oromo from the Ethiopian public scene. It was a moment of imagining home from exile. In short, it was a season of restoring dignity to the Oromo (even in the darkness of the unprecedented state terror from 1992-todate).

• Reconstruction

The fourth phase is probably the most critical of all. This stage marks the season for the Oromo to take their legitimate place in the world. It is a stage of reconstituting the Oromo self in the context of a globalized world infinitely interconnected with other peoples. It is a season of reconfiguring the Ethiopian state. The work at this stage can be nothing but transformative. It is a work of engaging with Ethiopia, the horn region, the African Union, the middle-east, and the wider world. It is a moment of projecting an Oromo self that intervenes in the world as a force for good, as a responsible regional actor, as a responsible ‘international citizen.’

At this stage, as a people, the Oromo shall hopefully overcome the brokenness of our past, the deep fractures in our relations with the other peoples of Ethiopia and the Horn. In particular, the Oromo must pay attention to the Ethiopian State with a view to engagement for its genuine transformation. The Oromo pursuit of justice must be complemented by a responsible pursuit of democracy, if only to harness the political power needed to transform the state. Oromo pursuit of equality in citizenship can be a rallying point for all of the ‘other’ peoples (who inhabit the Southern and the peripheral half of Ethiopia). This demand for equality is at its root a question of justice, but we have now learnt the bitter lesson that justice is the function of (mainly legislative and judicial) power. The task of reconstruction cannot be done without pursuing some form of transformative power. The Oromo quest for equaliberty becomes a synthesis of individual rights on the one hand and the right of collectivities (as well as classes and other categories) to universal social equality. In a sense, this self-conscious and reflexive pursuit of power is a pursuit of a ‘strong democracy.’[9]Pursuing a strong democracy in a country such as Ethiopia, pursuing transformative power in this context, requires a huge sense of responsibility to reckon with the other (all the Ethiopian others) with an eye on reconfiguring the terms of citizenship, to reconstruct the state, and to transfigure the state-society relationship. This process of pursuing and achieving transformative power is an engagement in the task of redemption (a process of turning the essentially illegitimate into legitimate). [10]

Granted, it is a painful task. It requires looking at historical evil squarely in the eye, reckoning with its impacts, accounting for it, remembering it, but choosing to forgive. [11]It requires an agonistic engagement with our plurinationality and the complexity thereof. It comes with cost and sacrifice. For the Oromo, the price of equaliberty is a sense of national responsibility. This is because the work of reconstruction in Ethiopia demands nothing less than redemption. From theological discourses, we know that redemption requires sacrifice that invests in the belief that the future will be different from the past. It is a process that unleashes anguish as we try to undo injustices of the past and hope for a fairer and more just future.

Transformative engagement with Ethiopia requires consideration of several concrete political realities such as international debts, borders, and military engagements in the neighbouring countries and in the UN Peace-keeping mission fields. More importantly, it requires a serious look into the trade, investment, and development partnerships that Ethiopia has gone into and the obligations that flow therefrom. The Oromo also needs to engage creatively and imaginatively with the institutions of the Ethiopian empire. One has to have a clear idea of what to do with its repressive security, intelligence, military, police, and prison institutions. One also needs to have a clear idea of what to do with abused constitutional institutions and arrangements (parliaments, elections, federalism, self-determination rules, constitutions, ‘rule of law,’ etc). The most urgent and pressing challenge that the Oromo needs to counter directly is the arrest and eradication of the intermittent famine that is caused and mismanaged by successive Ethiopian regimes.

In the endeavour to transform the state-society relation, the Oromo needs to change the hierarchic, centralized, and authoritarian political culture of the country. When it comes to the issue of handling plurinationality and the demand for ethno-cultural justice, the Oromo needs to appreciate that there will be no post-EPRDF moment in some ways and find more practical and just ways of satisfying legitimate national aspirations at all levels. For this, the Oromo needs to empower citizens, preparing them for the democracy to come both within Oromia and in the wider Ethiopia. One needs to prepare people for making an informed sovereign choice in the deliberations on sensitive issues of self-determination and constitutional secession. Throughout, one needs to beware of what we inherit: huge amounts of international debts; an interlocked and inter-dependent but conflicting and volatile neighbourhood; chronic poverty; malfunctioning institutions; budding corruption in a bubble economy;a generally neo-liberal-capitalist global society; a US-driven civilizational cleavage in the ‘war against terrorism’; a deeply divided society; a society that is traumatized by decades of state terrorism; etc.

In the work of reconstruction, the Oromo ought to enact wholeness, connectedness, into the future. The Oromo now ought to become the people of promise, the people of hope. The Oromo ought to draw on their traditional values and institutions to actively pursue justice. They only need to remember that they are a people of legality (seera and safuu), a people of egalitarian rule (Gadaa), a people of peace (nagaa), a people of substantive justice (sirna dhugaa fi haaqaa), and a people of reconciliation (araara). In all this, they act from the space of brokenness they inhabit as a people who know, from lived experience, what it means to be oppressed. In engaging with the world from the position of brokenness and suffering helps the Oromo create that moment of inter-subjectivity, the space in-between, born out of the historic vulnerability.As Hannah Arendt reminds us, this place in-between is where the world is constituted. “The world is between people,”[12] she once said.

At this stage of the national struggle, the Oromo engage in the act of rebuilding. We build walls of connection, solidarity, humanity, and co-equal/human responsibility. It is at this historical stage that the Oromo takes advantage of the contemporary world’s law. Ruti Teitel calls this body of global law ‘humanity’s law.’[13] It is composed of the trinity of international human rights law, the law of war (humanitarian law), and international criminal justice. The first is chiefly a protective body of law (firmly rooted in the fundamental human dignity and worth). The second is more a remedial type of law that gets activated in times of crisis as  people conflict (going to war or engaging in other forms of political violence) and mistreat each other (in the context of war). The third is focused on ensuring responsibility for atrocities beyond one’s national borders. In this third category of law, the Oromo sees the International community as a truth bearing witness and a potential ally in the pursuit of their equaliberty. The third category, being mainly a post-sovereignty regime of law, also helps us overcome the weaknesses of traditional state-centred institutions of human rights and humanitarian law. It is this nature that makes it suitable to the concerns of sub-national entities that were routinely ignored or abused by the complicity of the national and the international actors whose conducts are anchored in the notion of sovereignty.

The Oromo of the 21^st century, the brave new generation that is living this moment of awakening, has the task of reconstruction by paying attention to and taking advantage of the contemporary humanity’s law.   Humanity’s law helps us achieve human rights, peace, and justice, all three of them together. This in turn consolidates just peace in the entire region.  For the Oromo, apart from allowing us to engage the international (which was often neglected in the struggle although the latter was always attendant to our oppression from colonial times to cold war, and further on to this neo-liberal ‘global-capitalist’ age), helps us pursue equaliberty, i.e., both equality and liberty. The historic Oromo quest for freedom and social justice will then be achieved within this framework.

In the course of reconstruction, the Oromo engage in self-transcendence. They live out the imperative of paying attention as an act of solidarity with all oppressed people around them. They reach out to all their neighbours, especially the humble and the lowly. And these are in abundance in the region, be it in Ethiopia or in the wider Horn region. Without reaching out to these and working together with them, Oromia can hardly achieve freedom, justice, or peace.

3. Pursuing Equaliberty: The Imperative of Resistance, Recovery, and Reconstruction

The Oromo pursuit of equaliberty in the framework of humanity’s law, unlike what its detractors maintain, is not a quest for power. Nor is it just a quest for thin democracy as experienced in electoral practices. It is primarily a quest for social justice in a democratic environment that is grounded in a sense of responsibility for the protection and elevation of human dignity. In this process, the Oromo is going to go beyond resistance and self-recovery to achieve reconstruction with an eye on reconciliation. This is necessitated by the fact that both freedom and justice, both liberty and equality, are intensely relational. No time is more suited than now for us to proclaim, in the spirit of Ubuntu, that “I am because we are.” No place needs this spirit in abundance more than do Oromia and its neighbourhood.

4. After the Oromo Protest: the Imperative of Reconstruction

In the past few years, we have witnessed among the Oromo the simultaneous operation of the logic of recovery and resistance–sometimes alternately, sometimes simultaneously. The stronger the repression, the more powerful the momentum of the resistance. The generation that benefitted from the cultural rehabilitation has come of age to demand their right in their own terms. In the last five months we have become fortunate to see a generation that is mentally emancipated, a populace that knows how to conduct itself in the face of adversity, a people who act cohesively with a unity of purpose. We have seen the persistence in resistance.

We have seen a people determined to insist on justice. A people who turned (economic and electoral) despair into hope, loss (of land and livelihood) into gain, (electoral and military) defeat into (a genuinely substantive political) victory.
We have witnessed a people who, with their resilience, exposed the moral and political bankruptcy of a conceited regime. We observed a self-mobilized, self-directed, grassroots movement that virtually shamed and humiliated a seemingly invincible regime. We have seen people expose the limits of deceptive politics whose legitimacy is shored up through using election as a war by other means. We have seen a people who tested the limits of political double-speak. We have seen a people who exposed the true nature of the regime. They have rendered a region totally ungovernable. They have forced the regime to impose a military rule.[14]

We have seen a movement that conducted itself responsibly vis-à-vis other peoples even in the face of provocation and manipulation by the regime to foment horizontal conflicts.

This is an indication of the fact that the Oromo public is now ready to engage the wider Ethiopia, the entire region, and the world re-constructively, transformationally, redemptively within the framework of humanity’s law. The success of this National Awakening is to be completed when its leaders demonstrate thecapacity to make the generation to begin again, to start afresh, to remake the neighbourhood, to build new walls of interdependence, even from the ravages of our oppressed Oromo lives. The success is said to be complete when the Qubee Generation demonstrates its capacity to write a new history by emulating the Phoenix that “rises out of the ashes”, to go beyond the ruins imposed on it by a century of injustice to make a difference in the region.

For this, we need to start paying attention to connectedness, inter-dependence, and the need for acting in solidarity with others. After all, as Simone Weil reminds us, paying attention is an act of grace, the ultimate expression of solidarity. Like all the other peoples in Ethiopia, the Oromo ought to start learning to see through others’ lens. We have a fear to dispel. We have a trust to build. We have the responsibility to enchant the generation into hope and a better future.

5. Conclusion

The current Oromo awakening reminds us that the Oromo have survived. The age of being seen as an unwanted presence, as a vestige of a regrettable past in Ethiopia, is substantially on the decline. The work of national self-recovery has borne fruits.The Qubeegeneration is already here to make a difference.The children have arrived. Resistance has matured, especially in the way it conducts itself horizontally. But in the main, it has restored agency to the Oromo public, who in turn have made Oromia totally ungovernable to the regime. Mental emancipation has been achieved.

People now know how to act, and can act, even in desperate conditions. What remains now is to start engaging wisely with the world around us in the task of reconstruction.  Prudence suggests that we can take advantage of humanity’s law. Prudence also suggests that we be mindful of the fact that in our times, lawful engagement is a necessity. Yes, law, too, can be effectively—albeit discerningly—be used as a spectre of resistance and a useful means of reconstruction. We need to remember that more often than not, law is deployed as ‘war by other means.’ It is this interlocked deployment of law in/and war that David Kennedy calls lawfare[15] (war by legal means), and perhaps rightly so. The flip side of this is that law can be deployed to build connections, relations, and peace thereof. I hope the Oromo national awakening will make optimal use of this lawful form of engagement with the world.

ED’s Note: Tsegaye Ararssa is from Melbourne Law School. He can be reached at:tsegayenz@gmail.com.  The article was prepared as a remark for the ‘RIGHT TO FREEDOM’ event organized by Oromo Support Group Australia, 16-17 April 2016, Melbourne Australia

 End Notes:

[1] Etienne Balibar, Equaliberty:Political Essays, Tr. James Ingram. (Duke University Press, 2014).

[2] The term ‘survivance’ is used among scholars working on the issues of First Nations (also known as indigenous peoples). I came across the term for the first time in the work of Gerald Vizenor, Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance (Nebraska, 1999). The term means a lot more than mere survival. According to Vizenor, “Survivance is an active sense of presence, the continuance of native stories, not a mere reaction, or a survivable name. Native survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, tragedy and victimry.” In Derridan sense, survivance of course refers to “a spectral existence that would be neither life nor death.” The Oromo struggle in its first iteration soon after the conquest was more like survivance, especially in its quest for active presence in the Ethiopian polity.

[3] Ruti Teitel, Humanity’s Law (Oxford University Press, 2011). Teitel identifies three important components that constitute ‘Humanity’s Law’: International Human Rights Law; Laws of war (traditionally known as humanitarian law, i.e., the law IN war and the law OF war); and International Criminal Justice (following the creation of the International Criminal Court via the Rome Statute). Humanity’s Law, Teitel argues, is the new framework of understanding ‘transitional justice’ in the context of changing global relations. I follow her tack and suggest that this law lays the framework for solidarity and responsibility in an increasingly interdependent world.

[4] I am indebted to Nageessaa Oddo Dube for this phrase. Nageessaa used the phrase in his recent speech televised by Oromo TV on 16 April 2016, also available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF4SskY660A.

[5] One notes, however, that the formation of the Western Oromo Confederation in 1936 and its act of approaching the League of Nations for membership, or alternatively seeking a British Protectorate instead of submitting to the Italian invaders, was an early and short-lived expression of overt resistance to the hegemony of the Ethiopian empire and an assertion of Oromo subjectivity in the international system of the time. See Ezikiel Gebissa’s ‘The Italian Invasion, the Ethiopian Empire, and Oromo Nationalism: The Significance of the Western Oromo Confederation of 1936,’ 9 Northeast African Studies 3 (2002), 75.

[6] A commitment also inscribed in the 1991 Transitional Charter of Ethiopia and later in the preamble of the 1995 Constitution of Ethiopia. To an extent, this undelivered promise of the constitution was what made the political elite of Ethiopia’s South (including the Oromo) ambivalent in their reaction to the constitution. It was also this promise that TPLF used to co-opt several Southern nationalists.

[7] This increasing use of songs, cultural events (such as Irrecha), exhibitions, etc to express political disaffection is recently referred to as the ‘cultural turn’ in the trajectory of Oromo national struggle. See Ezekiel Gebissa, “Land, Life, and Leadership” [?] (Dec 2015, OSA Extraordinary conference on the Master Plan).

[8] Alison Phipps, ‘Drawing Breath: Creative Elements and their Exile from Higher Education’ Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 9(1) (2010), 43.

[9] Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (20^th anniversary ed) (University of California Press, 2004).

[10]This is inspired by a thought in Richard Dehmel’s poem, Transfigured Night (Verklarte Nacht) (1998) in which the conception of a child by an adulterous wife is transfigured by the light of love, also represented by the moonlit night, to bring infinitely more joy and rejuvenation to the husband. I like to suggest that this kind of redemptive transfiguration helps us overcome ‘constitutional original sins’ in order for us to go beyond the original constitutive wrong.

[11] An imperfect but useful institutional model in this regard is presented to us in the example of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

[12] Hannah Arendt, Men in Dark Times (Harvest Publishers, 1970).

[13] Ruti Teitel, Humanity’s Law (Oxford University Press, 2011). See also her ‘Humanity’s Law: Rule of Law for the New Global Politics,’ (2002) 35 Cornell Journal International of Law(2), 356. Teitel tries to work out a new framework of accountability at the global level by going beyond her earlier work on Transitional Justice (Oxford 2000). This framework, I hope, will be useful for the Oromo both to pursue justice for the atrocities experienced and to engage with their neighbors responsibly. Coming as they do out of a long and deep crisis situation, the Oromo can also use this framework for building a sustainable peace grounded in justice and truth.

[14] Contrary to what many people assume, what exists in Oromia now is not Martial Law. It is a pure military rule devoid of any semblance of legality that one sees even in Martial law (a rule under the command of the highest military official that suspends or deposes political leaders because of a constitutional crisis or utter incompetence on the part of civilian political governance).  In Ethiopia, what we see is an illegal dismissal of the state’s civilian administration by a Command Post chaired by the Federal Prime Minister who ordered, again illegally, eight divisions of the Army to “take a merciless and final measure” on protesters.

[15]David Kennedy, ‘Laware and Warfare’ in Cambridge Handbook of International Law, eds. James Crawford and Martti Koskenniemi (2012), 159, and David Kennedy,Of War and Law (Princeton University Press, 2006).

Washington, D.C. (Senator Rubio) – U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) today introduced a resolution with 11 other senators condemning the lethal violence used by the government of Ethiopia against protesters, journalists and others in civil society for exercising their rights under Ethiopia’s constitution.

The resolution calls on the Secretary of State to conduct a review of U.S. security assistance to Ethiopia in light of allegations that Ethiopian security forces have killed civilians.  It also calls upon the government of Ethiopia to halt violent crackdowns, conduct a credible investigation into the killing of protesters, and hold perpetrators of such violence accountable.

“Peaceful protestors and activists have been arrested, tortured and killed in Ethiopia for simply exercising their basic rights,” said Rubio. “I condemn these abuses and the Ethiopian government’s stunning disregard for the fundamental rights of the Ethiopian people. I urge the Obama Administration to prioritize respect for human rights and political reforms in the U.S. relationship with Ethiopia.”

“I am shocked by the brutal actions of the Ethiopian security forces, and offer condolences to the families of those who have been killed.  The Ethiopian constitution affords its citizens the right to peaceful assembly and such actions by Ethiopian government forces are unacceptable,” said Cardin. “The government’s heavy-handed tactics against journalists and use of the 2009 Anti-Terrorism and Charities and Societies Proclamations to stifle free speech and legitimate political dissent demonstrate a troubling lack of respect for democratic freedoms and human rights.”

U. S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)	U. S. Senator Chris Coons (D-DE)	U. S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL)	U. S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA)
U. S. Senator Al Franken (D-MN)	U. S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA)	U. S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT)	U. S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA)
U. S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ)	U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH)

Sagalee Qeerroo Bilisummaa Oromoo (SQ) Ebla 21,2016/Gaaffii Bakka Bu’aa Qeerroo Godina Baalee

South Sudanese refugees at Jawi camp in Gambella have killed 14 people yesterday April 21, 2016. The victims are said to be day laborers who provide service to the refugee camp. 10 of the victims are confirmed to be Oromos. The the conflict reportedly began when water tank hitting and killing a child. The refuge then started indiscriminate revenge attack against any ‘outsider’ they could find.
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Naannoo Gambellaa mooraa Jaawwii jedhamu keessatti namoonni 14 baqattoota Suudan Kibbaatin ajjeefamee odeeffannoon achii dhufe ni hima. Namoonni ajjeefaman dafqaan bultoota mooraa saniif tajaajila kennan akka ta’ee beekamee jira. Warra ajjeefaman keessaa 10 Oromoota akka ta’anis ni himama. Haleellaan kun kan eegale konkolaataan boottee bishaanii tokko tasa da’aima tokko irra bayee erga ajjeesee booddee biiluu bahuuf namoota ‘alagaa’ ta’an hundarratti baqattoonni duula banuuni.

Oduu tarkaanffii
Guyyaa kaleessaa jechuun Eebila21/04/2016 qabeenyaa wayyaanee kan ta,e yeroo ammaa maqaan isaa duraanii selam bus ture.Ammammoo maqaa isaa gara golden bus jedhamutti jijjiirachuun oromiyaa keessatti hojii eegalee kan jiru irratti qeerroon magaalaanaqamtee tarkaanffii gara laafina hin qabne magaalaa naqamtee keessaa naannoo soorgaa jedhamutti qeerroon magaalattii guutummaa konkolaataa diinaa kana gubanii daaraa godhaniiru.vivaa qeerroo leeqaa jabaadhaa

Sulultaa Irratti Daandiin Cufame, FXGs Jabaate‏e Itti Fufe!
Ebla 22,2016, Godina Addaa oromiyaa Sulultaa toora taaksiin dhaabbattun daandii Finfinnee irraa gara Bahadar fudhatu Qeerroo magaalichaan cufameetu jira.Har’a ganamas humna bittinneessaa wayyaneetiin daandiin kun banamuun Qeerroon yoo gabaasu daandiiwwan keessoo magaalichaas dhagaawwaan gurguddaa fi mukeeniin cufamaanii jiraatuun odessi ibsa.Godina addaa oromiyaa kana Sulultaa irraa kaasee haga shawaa kaabaa Fiichee fi Gabra Gurraachaa dabalatee Fincilli barattootaan yoommuu itti fufu qaama uummataa fi Qeerroo keessaniis tarkaanfiin
diinaa fi qabeenya diinaa irratti fudhatamuun haala kana keessatti jabaataa jira.
Waraqaa warraqsaa Qeeyroos halkan edaa sulultaa fi caancootti facaame bule waraana Wayyanee mufachiisuudhaan waraqaalee qeeyroo magaalota kana keessaa sarootni diinaa funaanuu gabaasan dubbata.
Kana booda waraanni wayyaanee oromiyaa akka gadhiisuu fi konkolaataan Wayyaanees oromiyaa keessa akka hin sochoone qeeyroon tarkaanfii fi FXG jabeeffatee ittui fufeetu jira. Odeessa qeeyroo godinaalee oromiyaa hunda irraan guyyaa guyyaatti qilleensa irraan waraabbii waliin kan dhiyaataa deemu tahuu Qeerroon beeksisaa jira.

‪#‎OromoProtests‬-(22.04.2016, ‪#‎FreeOromia‬, Oromia) Kun beeksisa qophii mata duree “Numaaf Numa!” jedhu jalatti Artist Oromoo, DABALAA DAMEE, gargaaruuf Finfinneetti qophaa’ee dha.
Artiist Dabalaa Damee akka wallisaatti Albaama/kaasseta 2 kan gumaacheera. Yeroo Baandii Gadaa turettis sagantaa Waldaa Maccaa fi Tuulamaa irratti ummata Oromoo dammaqsuu keessatti gaheen inni taphachaa ture ol’aanaadha.
Haa tahuu garuu, haalli hammaatee artistii kana akka inni deebi’ee hin mul’anne godhee dhoksee jira. Artisti dabalaa ummanni bal’aa yeroo ammaa kana isa quba hin qabu.
Haalli inni keessa dabre haala ulfaataadha. Artistoota Oromoorratti irkatee bakka jireenyaa fi waan ittiin jiraatu osoo hin qabaatin waggoota dheeraa lubbuun jiraatee har’a gahee jira. Amma garuu rakkoo jireenyaa irratti dhukkubni dabalamee haala akkana jedhamee hin himamne keessa jira.
Kanaaf, ummati Oromoo akkuma kanaan dura artistoota biroof birmachaa dhufettis, artisitii isaa yeroo nagaa aadaa fi eenyummaa isaa guddisuu keessatti gahee isaa bahachaa ture kanaaf akka birmatuuf qophiin qophaa’ee jira.
Guyyaa: Guyyaa: 24/04/16/ 16/08/08
Bakka: Giddugala Aadaa Oromoo
Saa’atii: 8:00 irraa eegalee
Gargaaruuf Lakk. bilbila isaa +251 920123767
DEBELA DAME JIMA
AWASH INTERNATIONAL BANK S.C JEMO BRANCH,SWIFT CODE,AWINETAA XXX. ACCOUNT NO.01320091000400 dha.
Hojiilee isaa durii warri dhagahuu barbaadan link armaan gadii tuqaa https://www.facebook.com/ferhanabdulselam/videos/10208199006807173/

#‎OromoProtests‬-Irreechi Arfaasa bara kanaa Dilbata dhufu Finfinneetti irreeffatamuuf waan deemuuf Oromoonni marti dhagayaa Wal dhageessisaa.
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Horri Finfinnee waggoota dhibbaa oliif adaafii seenaa oromoo waakkattee turte arra of yaadattee araaraaf nu eegaa jirti.
Kanaafuu irreecha dilbata dhufu finfinneetti kabajamuuf deemu kana irratti oromoonni Hindi bakka jirruu kan dandeenyu qaamaan kaanis waan dandeenyuun irratti hirmaannee hammam akka geenyu handhuura finfinnee irratti agarsiisuu qabna

‪#‎OromoProtests‬-(22.04.2016, ‪#‎FreeOromia‬, Oromia) This was Abbaa Gadaa Gamtesa Gidera (Western Wallaga, Aira early 1940). This person was a powerful Abbaa Gadaa in Aira Wallaga area. The picture was taken by Pastor Wasman around early 1940.
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Kun seenaa dhugaa Gadaa Oromootiin walqabatee dha. Gadaan Oromoo Oromiyaa dhiyaa keessatti bara 1940 keessa akka hojjataa ture mirkaneessa. Sirni garbummaa hundee Gadaa balleessuuf waan danada’ame mara godhus, Ciraan Gadaa hin dabiin jira. Amma egaa, waan gabroomfataan awwaalame diiganii baasuun dirqama dhaloota Qubee ta’ee jira.

‪#‎OromoProtests‬-(22.04.2016, ‪#‎FreeOromia‬, Oromia)This is the funniest charge and evidence produced by TPLF agents to silence Oromo students.
Kun waan jarri ittiin saba keenya ukkaamsuuf yaalaa jiran.

Country’s economic growth is widening the divide between rich and poor

By Margaret Evans

I met my first in Addis Ababa in the form of a club full of couples, swirling around the dance floor to a salsa version of Dolly Parton’s Jolene.

This was the much talked about “emerging middle class” of Addis. Or maybe the upper-middle.

“I love the whole growth and the process,” a 33-year-old woman named Lily Yohannes told me. “It’s in an amazing, innovative state right now, so I’m part of it, hopefully.”

A woman who sorts through garbage for a living is seen on the streets of Addis Ababa. The World Bank reports a 33% reduction in the share of the Ethiopian population living in poverty over the past 15 years, but the country remains one of Africa’s poorest. (Margaret Evans/CBC)

Yohannes moved back to Addis recently after living in Dubai for a number of years — drawn, she says, by the buzz. She and her sister run a fashion label. She teaches salsa on the side.

“In Ethiopia I think there is that average class that is being established as we speak right now,” she says. “You know there are people coming up in life and they’re not necessarily the richest, but the average class is being built up, so that’s a good sign for me.”

The main bus depot is a ballet of constant activity as porters climb up onto the rooftops of buses loaded down with sacks of food, boxes and suitcases, lowering them down on ropes or onto the shoulders of other porters while newly arrived hopefuls in the city wait patiently for their belongings.

Porters unload passengers’ belongings and sacks of food from a bus at the main depot in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian capital is undergoing an enormous growth spurt, with foreign investment fuelling construction and more people moving to the city in search of work and to escape drought. (Margaret Evans/CBC)

The government’s stated goal is to become a “middle-income” nation by 2025, and much has been made of the country’s economic growth in recent years, nearly 10 per cent annually over the past decade. Investment from China has also helped transform the face of Addis Ababa.

Along with some of the country’s well known “pro-poor” policies, the transformation has turned Ethiopia into a bit of a star in the eyes of western governments including the United States and Canada.

They look at some of Ethiopia’s neighbours — Sudan, Somalia, South Sudan, Eritrea — and congratulate each other on their good relations with a country they call an “island of stability” in the region.

Abysmal human rights record

But Ethiopia’s human rights record is abysmal and perhaps all the more dangerous because it’s not always overt. The violent crackdown by government forces on protesters in Oromia last year has been well evidenced by human rights groups. As many as 200 people were killed, according to witnesses. The government has promised an inquiry.

Just as worrying is the reluctance — and in some cases outright fear — ordinary people have when it comes to criticizing the government.

One of Lily’s dance partners was happy to talk about life in Addis, his feelings about the divide between the rich and the poor and between rural and urban Ethiopians.

“The contrast is crazy, but even without the drought there is the contrast between the lifestyles of the people inside the cities and outside the cities,” he said.

Ask him about politics and things become very vague. “I try not to engage in politics most of the time,”  he explained, “but we hear about it.”

When I asked him specifically about the Oromia protests, sparked by government appropriation of land near Addis, his answer is this: “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, if that can be an answer. I hope you get me.”

“I don’t know what’s going on” has become code for criticism of the government in Addis. In other words: I don’t know because the government isn’t telling me.

Journalists jailed

Controlling the message is an art form for the Ethiopian government, even when it comes to framing the narrative around foreign aid in the midst of the current drought.

It’s not possible to travel as a journalist in Ethiopia without government permissions. If you don’t have them, ordinary citizens will demand them from you. And you are usually assigned a government minder.

Local officials assigned to accompany us on our recent trip were reluctant to allow us to see any real signs of suffering in the face of the drought.

That’s a reflection, in part, of a proud culture unhappy with the notion of anyone thinking Ethiopia is not willing or able to care for its own.

But it’s also about control.

“There appears to be a tendency by some in the international humanitarian system to change the message in such a way that what the rest of the world hears from Ethiopia is a shrill cry of an SOS for immediate intervention,” the government’s communications minister, Getachew Reda, said in an interview.

Despite the vast construction underway in Addis Ababa, the vast majority of Ethiopians depend on rain-fed agriculture to survive. (Margaret Evans/CBC)

The government’s interest in controlling its own media is much more problematic than just prying into what foreign reporters are saying about the drought. Human Rights Watch calls Ethiopia “one of the leading jailers of journalists on the continent.”

That, of course, contributes to an underlying climate of fear.

When I asked Lily’s salsa partner about it he said: “TIA — This is Africa. We’re slowly progressing to … whatever we’re progressing to. I would not say we’re free or we’re not free because I’m not political and I don’t’ know exactly what goes on.”

(Addis Standard) — Prosecutors have today charged 22 individuals, including prominent opposition member Bekele Gerba (pictured), first secretary general of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), with various articles of Ethiopia’s much criticized Anti Terrorism Proclamation (ATP). Addis Standard could not obtain details of the charges as of yet.

However, charges include, but not limited to, alleged membership of the banned Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), public incitement, encouraging violence, as well as causing the death of innocent civilians and property destructions in cities such as Ambo and Adama, 120km west and 100km east of Addis Abeba during the recent Oromo protests in Ethiopia.

As per the decision during the last hearing, defendants were expected to appear at the Arada First Instance Court this afternoon, but were instead taken to the Federal High Court 19^th criminal bench this morning. The court adjourned the next hearing until Tuesday April 26^th.

The defendants that include a Kenyan citizen were all arrested between November and December 2015, shortly after the start (and in connection with) Oromo protests in November that gripped the nation for the next five months. Defendants also include several members of OFC, students and civil servants who came from various parts of the Oromia regional state. Except for the one Kenyan, whose name Addis Standard couldn’t obtain as of yet, all of the defendants came from Addis Abeba and various cities and towns within the Oromia regional state, the largest of the nine regional states in Ethiopia.

Although Bekele Gerba et.al were represented by lawyer Wondmu Ebbissa during the last five court appearances that took place at the Arada First Instance Court, today’s hearing in which the charges were read to the defendants happened with neither Wondmu nor any public defendant present, the reason why the court adjourned the next appearance until Tuesday April 26^th. The next hearing is also scheduled to help six of the 22 defendants who spoke only in Afaan Oromo to come up with interpreters.

The court also ordered the police to relocate defendants from the notorious Ma’ekelawi detention center to prison facilities under the Addis Abeba Prison Authority. During the last hearing on March 18^th, Bekele Gerba made an emotional appeal to the court revealing he and the 21 others with him were kept inhumanly in a cell the size of 4 X 5m that included a toilet and beds for all. “To be imprisoned is nothing new”, Bekele was quoted by his lawyer as telling the court, “but there is almost no country in the world which violates your basic rights while one is under police custody. I have never seen a government as cruel as the government in Ethiopia.”

In January Bekele Gerba et al went on a hunger strike protesting against inhuman treatments in the hands of the police including denial of family visits at Ma’ekelawi. Sever tortures against the defendants were reported in the same month.

Bekele Gerba, who is the fourth defendant (and a high profile defendant of all), was arrested on Dec. 23 2015.  His arrest is the second time since 2011, during which he was sentenced to eight years in prison suspected of allegedly belonging to the banned Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). He spent almost four of the eight years before he was freed in April 2015. In a May 2015 interview with Addis Standard, Bekele Gerba, known for his outspoken criticism of widespread injustices in Ethiopia, said prison was “not a place one appreciates to be. But I think it is also the other way of life as an Ethiopian; unfortunately it has  become the fate of many of our people.”